


Unsuspected

by Phoenix_Emrys



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 01:58:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4245201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenix_Emrys/pseuds/Phoenix_Emrys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Daniel is terribly injured in an off-world incident Sam learns something astonishing about the Colonel and the Archaeologist.<br/>Warning: Daniel gets messed up and it isn't pretty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unsuspected

Sam stood on the edge of the wide rock shelf jutting from the side of the shattered crag brooding over the sea of cracked, bleached earth stretching with unrelenting monotony in every direction as far as she could see. She shaded her eyes against the unremitting glare of the blazing overhead sun, squinting across the baked wasteland writhing with heat, her eyes straining to pierce the wavering curtain of the distant, shimmering horizon, hoping…

_Hurry, Teal’c! Please hurry!_

It had been over an hour since he’d signalled they were on their way back. Teal'c and Janet and the medical team he'd gone to fetch. Help was on the way; it was going to be all right.

Daniel was going to be all right. He had to be. No matter how it looked he was going to be fine. Sam clung desperately to that stubborn assertion, refusing to consider any other possibility.

No matter how bad things looked, or what logic screamed otherwise.

P5H-756. Planet Hell, as the colonel had dubbed this planet, and oh boy, had he called it. He’d officially declared it a “not a chance in hell we’re going there” planet after viewing the less-than-spectacular MALP footage, and then had bitched up a storm when the UAV had passed over the mountain range and transmitted the pictures of the ruins of the alien complex and the oh-so-fascinating energy readings that had so excited her and made her insist they come here and check out.

The colonel had not wanted to come here but he’d given in to her. With Daniel backing her up. They’d come here all right, over the colonel's apprehensions and objections because she just had to find that energy source….

Now she cursed her curiosity for what it had led them to. Wished they’d never heard of Planet Hell, set one foot through the gate and onto this world, found the cave, those tunnels and the deadly little Pandora’s box they'd been harbouring that had taunted her with its tantalizing inscrutability, daring her to attempt to unlock its secrets.

Oh, she’d dared. She'd stepped right up and stuck her hand in where she'd no business going. And now another was paying the price for her presumption.

Sam scowled, scrubbed the sweat from her eyes, and peered out at the horizon again Knowing Teal’c had made it to the gate safely on his own and was on his way back with the medical team didn’t make her feel any better about not going with him in the first place. There was no question someone had to stay with Daniel, also no question that someone was going to be the colonel, and she’d understood time was of the essence, Teal’c needed to move quickly, and lacking his Jaffa physiology and stamina in this heat—not to mention her shoulder slowing her down—there was no way she could have kept up with him and would only have been a hindrance if she’d tagged along but still… letting him go without back up even though there was nothing out there but baked earth and it was a straight, clear run to the gate….

It just went against the grain. To be standing here, doing nothing. Useless. Powerless. Watching. Waiting. Praying for a miracle for the man slowly dying in the cave behind her.

_No—no that wasn't going to happen. It wasn't! Don’t think that way, not even for a second!_

She heaved an angry, impatient sigh, hissing with annoyance as the sudden movement caused a shard of pain to shoot through her bandaged shoulder. The damned burn hurt like hell, even though it wasn’t very big. Still, she had no reason to complain, yeah, her little boo boo hurt, but she was lucky. Far more fortunate than she deserved to be. It could have been a lot worse. Would have been—should have been—if not for Daniel….

_God, Daniel it should be me lying there, not you…._

Sam scrubbed her eyes again, this time to wipe away the guilty tears erupting at the thoughts of the badly burned man suffering in the cool darkness of the cave behind her who’d come to be in that condition because somehow he’d known, before it happened—before whatever she’d touched on that alien device she’d found further back in the tunnel had made it go off.

Daniel had thrown himself between her and the device, pushing her out of the way of the radiation blast it had unexpectedly emitted as a result of her meddling. The ray had caught her on the shoulder, just a glancing contact causing a superficial burn but was nothing, really.

Nothing. Just a surface burn, even though it stung like heck. The point being – it wasn't serious. Yeah, she'd been lucky all right. Thanks to Daniel she was walking away from this with barely a scratch.

Daniel was a different story however. He hadn't been so lucky. He'd pushed her out of harm's way, saved her, but hadn't been able to save himself. He tried, but he wasn't able to get completely out of the range of the blast when the machine went off. He'd been bathed in the energy ray spit out from the device and what it had done to him….

Oh God, what it had _done_ to him!

They’d tried to dress the terrible burns but they were so extensive and painful it seemed every effort they made to help Daniel served only to hurt him further and they all knew it was ultimately a futile effort. His clothing had been seared from most of his body and what lay beneath….

There was so much damage; he'd been slightly turned to the side when the beam had struck and it had hit him no higher than chest level so his head and face had been spared but that was virtually the only mercy he could claim as a result of the deadly encounter. Every part of him the energy had touched beneath chest level… Sam couldn't stop shuddering thinking about it. During her time as a serving member of the SGC she'd seen some truly horrific things but at the moment she couldn't think of anything more horrifying than what the alien energy had done to Daniel.

And was continuing to do to him.

It wasn't awful enough he'd been so terribly burned, oh no, that wouldn't do it, it had to be even worse than that. Although the machine was smugly inert now it had done its worst to their best and it wasn't quite finished exacting its terrible toll for her arrogance. Some kind of residual effect from the energy was still active and malignantly working in Daniel's savaged flesh, causing him incredible, ceaseless agony. Again, there was nothing they could do to stop it or help him. Nothing they could do at all. The morphine they’d given him had barely taken the edge off the agony he was constantly enduring. They were helpless, absolutely powerless, unable to do anything but watch Daniel suffer and probably….

_No! He's not going to die! He isn't!_

Transporting Daniel back to the SGC had been out of the question. So they’d made him as comfortable as they could, and Teal’c had gone back to the gate alone, to get help, almost four hours ago.

Sam hadn’t been able to go with Teal’c. She didn’t feel as if she deserved to join the colonel watching over Daniel. She’d already done enough to “help”. Better for everyone she should stay out here, stay away, no matter what Daniel had said to her to absolve her.

“Not your fault,” he’d told her. So had the colonel. Sam wanted to believe them, but they would say that, even if it wasn’t the truth, because they wouldn’t want her to feel… the way she was feeling. That’s the kind of men they both were.

The kind of men who would do anything for a friend.

Although she sure didn’t feel as if she deserved it she was nevertheless so grateful for their consideration and concern. That’s why she knew with sincerity as fierce as the desperation with which she ached for an opportunity to demonstrate it if there was anything she could do… for them…

Sam blinked, startled as of a band of figures materialized in the distance. For  
hours she'd been standing here, straining to see, her hopes constantly dashed as  
every aberration marring the mocking emptiness had turned out to be nothing  
more than cruel illusions spun by the heat tortured atmosphere. But – there -  
those dark, flickering smudges dancing fitfully on the lip of the horizon and  
moving rapidly towards the mountain where an instant before there’d been  
nothing as if they’d spontaneously sprung into existence in response to her  
desperate need to see them. There was something there. It wasn't a trick this  
time or a wishful, heat inspired fantasy; as she continued to stare hopefully at  
them the smudges didn’t wink out and vanish.

Real. They were real.

"Major Carter."

Sam started as Teal’c’s deep, slightly distorted voice issued scratchily from her comm.

“Teal’c!” she cried joyfully into it.

"Inform Colonel O’Neill we are within sight of your position and should reach you within the next twenty minutes. Also inform him your suggestion to contact the Tok’ra was correct. They do indeed have the technology to deal with these injuries and have sent a doctor to assist DanielJackson."

“The Tok’ra?” Sam blurted, uncomprehending. The Tok’ra. Oh yeah. She’d forgotten she’d remembered remembering Rosha being badly burned in the cargo ship crash, how the Tok'ra had been able to heal her resulting injuries too severe for Jolinar to handle, that the Tok’ra did indeed have a way to completely restore tissue too damaged to be treatable by modern medical science.

She’d completely forgotten she’d remembered this and told Teal’c they had to contact the Tok’ra and ask them for their help.

"How is DanielJackson?"

Teal’c’s concerned voice cut across her confused relief. She flushed guiltily as she realised she had no answer for him. She didn’t know. Hadn’t been able to make herself go back in that cave to face what she’d done.

“He’s – he’s not good, Teal’c,” she finally said. “Copy and I’ll advise the colonel of your ETA. Hurry, okay?”

“ _Hurry_ ,” she muttered to herself as she turned away from the edge and darted across the stone shelf into the low mouth of the cave where the colonel was keeping a constant vigil over Daniel.

She had to duck her head slightly as she entered, pausing just within the rocky, shadow-draped opening to allow her eyes to adjust to the contrast from bright blazing to dim and diffusely lit. She had been about to call out to the colonel when a soft strange sound reaching out to her through the hushed, dread silence of the cave stilled her intention in her throat.

It was the colonel’s voice. Low, raw and terrified, charged with such potent, profound emotion it sounded as if it was being ripped from the very depths of his soul. The aching whisper carried but one single word:

“Danny…”

Sam froze, feeling suddenly wrong, as if she was an intruder, an unwelcome violator of something she was not meant to be a part of. What was worse, her eyes were now adjusting. She could not only hear the man who had just spoken with such palpable anguish, she could see him as well.

He was stretched out full length, propped up on one elbow, lying close to the undamaged side of the bandaged, shallowly panting man suffering beside him. Leaning over him carefully as if mortally afraid to even brush against him lest the slightest contact damage him even further. Reaching across with a slightly trembling hand to tenderly brush the hair away from his damp, dripping forehead.

Sam had seen the colonel comfort Daniel before, more times, in more ways and for more reasons than she cared to remember or enumerate. She’d seen many emotions use his countenance to find their momentary expression during these various times of trial, pain and fear, but in all the instances and in all the ways she’d witnessed various permutations of this scene enacted between these two men she’d never seen what she was seeing on Jack O’Neill’s face at this very moment.

The colonel’s dark eyes were shrieking with desperate fear, equally proclaiming another passionate, fierce emotion she also recognised but had never expected to encounter in this place, or anywhere, for that matter. She knew what burned in the colonel's smoking eyes, saw it at once for what it was; the most powerful force in existence.

The colonel was incandescent with it; it rolled from him in caring waves as he reached out to the man beside him not just with the hand he was using to stroke his brow. His touch was more than gentle, more than soothing. It was unmistakable in its intimate, comforting intention.

It was the caress of a lover.

He hadn’t seen her. She’d already seen too much. She knew she should leave even though it was already too late for that: the colonel was quite undone before her. Unmasked, his deepest secret revealed as surely as if he’d screamed it from the top of the highest building in town at the height of rush hour. Announced in a word, a glance and a touch.

She knew she should leave but she couldn’t move. Was completely unable to tear her eyes from the man she thought she knew, who had suddenly become someone completely different. A man in love, a man in anguish, a man in the throes of deep, dark terror for the one he would do anything for and now could do nothing to help.

Daniel’s chest heaved, a deep, gasping sob escaping from him. His eyelids fluttered and then opened.

_Oh God, he’s awake!_

“Jack?” The ragged utterance was barely audible, but the need in it was plain. The colonel drew closer, moving so Daniel could see him. See he was there.

“Shhh,” he whispered soothingly, trying to force his features into the semblance of a reassuring smile. “Here, Danny, I’m here. Lie still. Don’t try to talk.”

Daniel’s breathing became laboured as a wave of agony visibly sheered through him; a large tear slipped from his eye and careened down the side of his face.

“This—this really… really… sucks….” he groaned, screwing his eyes shut again as if grimacing could repel the pain assaulting him. His undamaged hand beat weakly against the colonel’s chest, trying and failing to hook his fingers into the colonel’s shirt as he struggled for an anchor against the sea of pain he was drowning in.

The colonel’s hand closed swiftly over the one reaching out to him; he captured it firmly and crushed it fiercely to his chest.

“I know, love, I know, I know,” the colonel crooned, his voice gentle and tender.

“Sucks,” Daniel affirmed stubbornly.

“I’m here, Danny. It’ll be all right.”

“P—promise?” The word rode out of Daniel’s throat on a choking gulp of pain.

“Youbetcha,” the colonel whispered as he leaned closer, brushing his lips softly against Daniel’s forehead, his eyes so terribly tender it hurt to see them. He continued to lightly, lovingly kiss Daniel’s brow and gently massage the hand tightly clenched in his.

“You’re just saying that,” Daniel started to grin and failed, his brave attempt at levity aborted by yet another assault of agony.

“God!” he cried, trying to suppress the sob crowding his throat. “ _Jack!_ ”

Sam felt her own throat close with choking sorrow as she saw the colonel momentarily squeeze his eyes shut against the wrenching sounds Daniel was making, and then open them again, his face resolutely brave for the sake of the man looking to him for the strength to continue.

“You’ll make it,” he said gently but firmly. “Hey, have I ever lied to you?”

Daniel weakly shook his head, his mouth suddenly quirking with a jerking, ironic smile. He emitted a short, barking laugh instantly turning into a groan of pain. “Sure – lots of times—aaah! Don’t make me laugh, you sadist!”

The colonel moved his hand to gently cup Daniel’s cheek while he nuzzled the  
other side of the injured man's face with his own.

“Sorry, Danny, sorry, oh God, love, I’m so sorry…”

The colonel continued to softly murmur mingling apologies and endearments, his lips moving carefully but ardently over Daniel’s face. Daniel moaned again, this time not in pain, but in weak, but still obvious response to the lips caressing his skin. He closed his eyes, his breathing becoming deeper, calmer.

“Better, baby?” the colonel murmured huskily, continuing to kiss him, still gently, but faster, moving closer to Daniel’s slightly open, panting mouth as he used the intimate touches to distract Daniel from the pain wracking his body.

Daniel faintly nodded; abruptly biting his lip so hard Sam could see he drew blood.

“Better,” he whispered. “Better but don’t—don’t—don’t call me—”

“Shhhh,” the colonel soothed once more. “I know, I know, I’m sorry, I won’t.”

“Okay,” Daniel gulped, rolling his head weakly back and forth. Abruptly his body spasmed and he scrunched his closed eyes tighter, huge tears squeezing out of them, his face contorting with pain and panic. He was trying to say something but only shallow, gasping sobs came out.

A single tear trickled from the colonel’s eye as he finally, lightly brushed Daniel’s lips with his own. Daniel whimpered low in his throat, a haunting, greedy sound as he strained up and into the mouth meeting his, urgently fumbling, nibbling and sucking. Driven by the pain and the need to escape it he cried for more of the only solace and distraction he could have.

 

Which the colonel more than willingly gave to him.

Sam felt hot, sympathetic tears sliding down her cheeks, blinding her, smearing her sight of the sweetly passionate and hungry kisses. The men’s mouths moved achingly against each other, loving, seeking, answering, receiving, hotly but tenderly knowing each other as thoroughly as the tragic circumstances permitted. They were lost in the desperate intimacy, consumed by it, uncaring of anything else.

It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen; something she herself had  
never known, and she couldn’t bear to look at it any more.

She knew she should go. What she'd witnessed here wasn’t meant for her and although she secretly, desperately envied it she was not going to spoil it by announcing her presence. She’d go out, make some noise, give the men time to defend their secret before coming back in and making her report.

Her report. Oh my God, how long had she been standing here watching… spying….

_Oh boy—the rescue party! They’ll be here any time now. Get a hold of yourself, Carter._   
_They can’t see this—mustn’t see this. No one should; nothing should spoil it or be allowed to intrude._

Don’t you worry guys, nothing will.

That _something_ she’d wanted so desperately to do for them; suddenly Sam knew exactly what it was. Her path was as clear as her conscience and as emphatically defined as her resolve.

Sam took a deep breath, wiped her eyes and slowly, carefully, backed out of the cave. When she’d made it she leaned against the rough, exterior stone surface, blinking before the painful assault of the searing sunlight. When it no longer felt like knives were slicing into her eyeballs she walked across the ledge, looked down and saw the rescue squad, led by Teal’c had arrived at the base of their little tor. They were just reaching the ancient walkway carved out of the side of the rock face, preparing to make the ascent to the ledge she was standing on.

Wow, she’d timed it just about right.

Time to warn the men within they were about to be interrupted.

“Colonel!” she called loudly into the interior of the cave. “They’re here, Sir! Teal’c is back, and Janet and the medics are with him.”

There was a brief silence inside the cave followed by small scuffling sounds, and  
then the colonel answered her in a voice a little too loud, a little too forced and  
still slightly breathless.

“Glad to hear it, Carter. So is Danny. Send ‘em on in.”

“They’re on their way up now, Sir,” Sam replied, trying to keep her voice cheerful and steady. “Teal’c radioed he’s brought a Tok’ra doctor with him.”

She paused, took another deep breath. “He says they can heal Daniel, Sir.”

For a moment her only answer was heavy, hanging silence. When the colonel finally spoke, it was in a thick, overburdened voice close to breaking.

“Oh God, Sam I hope you’re right.”

_Yeah, me too._

And then the rescue party was upon her wasting no time on greetings or introductions. Janet bustled straight into the cave, flanked by a tall, thin, severe-looking dark-skinned man in clad in the characteristic garb of the Tok'ra. Sam had never seen him before but if he could help Daniel like he was claiming he was more than welcome. He was closely followed by another Tok’ra man carrying several cases she assumed contained their equipment and medical supplies. The rest of the SGC medics Janet had brought with her were bringing up the rear.

About thirty seconds after the medical cavalry entered the cave the colonel was summarily evicted. He emerged abruptly from the blackness, stopping dead as the brilliant sunlight hit him, swaying slightly, blinking and rubbing his insulted eyes for several seconds.

Sam felt Teal’c move to her side and together they watched the colonel struggling to adjust, waiting so see what he would need from them next.

“High Chancellor Per’sus was most concerned for DanielJackson’s well-being,” Teal’c solemnly informed the colonel. “He dispatched his finest physician to render assistance. Doctor Darien is highly skilled, has had much experience with this type of injury and after viewing the video footage of the device stated he is familiar with it and knows exactly how to proceed.”

At the sound of Teal’c’s low, soothing voice the colonel stopped rubbing his eyes and stood wavering slightly, torn between his overwhelming desire to bolt back into the cave and the conditioning of a lifetime compelling him to hide all traces of the helplessness hanging off him like a shroud. He listened to Teal'c's report in uncharacteristic silence, his haunted gaze never straying from the black maw of the cave he was no longer allowed to enter.

“That’s good news, Sir,” Sam ventured. “Very encouraging, Daniel…”

Her voice trailed away as the colonel suddenly looked at her, his eyes hard and  
pleading; demanding she assure him—promise him….

Her heart hammered in her chest as she realised what he was asking of her. What he wanted her to say. The kind of _faith_ he was placing in her. The trust.

If _she_ said it was so—then it would be all he needed. And he _needed_ her to say….

But she didn’t know, not for sure, she couldn’t possibly – not promise him _that!_ What if she was wrong? Nothing was a hundred per cent. She hoped, yes of course she did but she didn’t – she didn’t know!

Not for sure.

“Carter?” the colonel softly entreated.

She didn’t have to _know_ it simply had to be.

“He’ll be fine, Sir,” she heard herself say strongly, confidently, and the minute  
the words were out of her mouth, she _knew_ Daniel would be.

“Indeed,” Teal’c echoed immediately, his deep voice heavy with a depth of emotion he rarely expressed.

The colonel’s gaze devoured her, his face desperate with gratitude. His lips tightly set in a thin, bloodless line, the colonel wrapped his arms around himself, rocked on his heels and finally faintly nodded. He bowed his head for an instant; then suddenly, unexpectedly started to stride away from them, hunching his shoulders while he walked as if trying to shrug a tremendous burden from his back. He quickly crossed the stone shelf where they all stood, stopping at the side of the cliff where he heavily slumped against the stone face as if he could summon the strength to endure the agonizing ordeal of waiting from the ageless substance propping him up.

Teal’c aimed an appraising look at him, making as if he intended to move toward him to offer assistance. Sam shook her head admonishingly, wordlessly warning the Jaffa to leave him be. Teal'c nodded his understanding, his dark eyes flaring briefly with a small, but quiet light as they quickly moved between the man they could see and the entrance to the cave wherein lay the man they couldn’t.

Whether Teal'c knew what she did or simply suspected, Sam didn't know, but what she did…. They both understood what they needed to do.

The Jaffa crossed his arms and shifted his body until, like her, he could no longer see the man who did not want to be watched as he waited. Together they granted the colonel the fullest amount of dignity and privacy they both could while still being there for him should he need them.

So they waited, in silence, for what would be.

The setting sun was turning the empty, glassy sky to crimson fire when their vigil came to an end.

“Colonel?” Janet’s voice emerged from the cave just ahead of her, and the man addressed was at her side before she had time to get out another word.

“How is he?” the colonel asked quickly, the question uttered tersely in a voice so taut it was stretched near to breaking.

Janet’s wide smile told them everything they needed to know.

“I’ve never seen anything like it, Colonel,” Janet informed him as she continued to beam her relief and elation at him. "There was no way I could have saved Daniel but the Tok'ra are so much more advanced then we are, thank goodness!

The speed and extent of the tissue regeneration – what Doctor Darien was able to do for Daniel, it's way beyond us, Colonel but fortunately for Daniel—”

“He’s going to be okay, then,” the colonel snapped, needing to hear the words.

“Yes,” Janet gave him a quick nod. “Yes, he is, and he's a very fortunate man. Burns that severe—" she started to say and then stopped when she saw the deep pain flaring in the colonel's eyes. "Daniel is going to be fine," she hastened to assure him. "He’s out of danger, no longer in pain and already well on the way to a full recovery and from what Doctor Darien tells me it will be a full recovery,Sir. Daniel won't even have any scars but it will take time and additional treatment. Doctor Darien and his staff are to be attached to the SGC for the duration of Daniel’s convalescence. We'll look after him,” she assured him with a kind smile.

The colonel’s face was ashen with shock and relief; for a brief, sickening second Sam was afraid he was going to crumple to the ground. Evidently Janet thought so as well; her eyes widened with alarm and she put a steadying hand on the colonel’s arm. As soon as she touched him he blinked, seemed to remember himself and shook off his reaction.

Janet was still talking to the colonel, Teal’c moving to his side. Sam slipped toward the entrance of the cave, wanting only to look inside, for just a moment, to see for herself Daniel was all right. Not that she didn’t absolutely trust what Janet was saying, she just had to see.

She was completely unaware of the other people in the cave, the Tok’ra physicians packing up their equipment, the SGC personnel doing the same. The only person she could see was Daniel.

Daniel was lying quietly, seemingly asleep, swaddled in a thermal blanket and strapped into a metal stretcher, all secured and ready for transport. One of his arms—the one that had been burned—was lying on top of the blanket. The skin was very pink, but it was _there_ , and the flesh, formerly so terribly ravaged was whole and well and blessedly normal and healthy looking.

Sam blinked past relieved tears as she stared down at Daniel's wonderfully restored arm noticing for the first time it was completely encased from shoulder to the tips of his fingers in a clear plastic membrane Sam assumed was a surgical dressing. There also seemed to be some kind of clear gel next to his skin.

Normally she would have been fascinated by this, wanting to examine the material as well as itching to have a look at the small device quietly humming away nestled by Daniel's feet, but now all she wanted to do was look at the peaceful, placid face of the man on the stretcher. No longer in pain. No longer suffering because of something she had done.

San wiped away a tear and was starting to back away when Daniel’s eyes flew open. He turned his head toward her, breaking into a genuine smile of delight when he saw her.

“Hey Sam,” he drawled sleepily. “Going home now, right?”

Sam nodded, not trusting her voice. She blinked harder, trying desperately not to cry but the tears kept slipping down her cheeks in defiance of her will.

Daniel peered up at her, his face becoming grave with concern at the sight of her tears.

“Crying?” he said quietly. “Don’t—don’t cry. No—no, don’t do that; don’t feel  
bad, it’s okay."

Sam shook her head vehemently as she felt herself teetering on the edge of one whopper of a wail.

“No, Daniel, it’s not okay. I hurt you. You could have—you could have died!”

“Sam, come here,” Daniel instructed sternly. “You’re too far away. I can’t hear you if I can’t see you.”

Sam obeyed without thinking, giggling at what he’d just said as she knelt by the side of the stretcher.

“I'm not going to make a lot of sense,” Daniel warned her with a fond, slightly muddled grin. “My Torr-ka doctor here has filled me full of some really good drugs. I’m not kidding, this stuff is excellent. Haven’t been this wasted since the time Jack made me drink some of that alien beer he was brewing in his basement. Took me days to find all my clothes after that one. Never did find my underwear,” he grumbled.

Daniel paused and then grinned sheepishly at her. “That’s poss’bly more information than you needed at the moment, but oh well. Drugs, really good drugs. Doc there—him—going out the door, bye-bye Doc—said I’d need to be juiced for the next, oh… ah… what was it… twenty-four hours? I think it was hours. Couldn’t be days—that’s not right, I'm pretty sure. Something about this stuff helping to boost my auto-erotic system so the goo he’s got all over me can…oh wow, that’s not right either, is it? Woo!”

“No, it’s not but that’s okay, Daniel,” Sam smiled and touched him gently on the chest. “You’re going to be fine, that’s all that matters. I’ll just get out of the way here now, so we can get you home.”

“No… no,” Daniel frowned sternly at her and shook his head. “Not going ‘til I say this. Don’t feel bad,” he blinked, shook his head again, valiantly trying to focus. “Not your fault, Sam. Not.”

Sam looked away, biting her lip as she felt her eyes filling once more. “It was my fault, Daniel. This wouldn’t have happened to you if I hadn’t been fooling around with something I knew nothing about.”

“Doing your job, Sam,” Daniel replied with gentle kindness, entreating her with  
his voice, compelling her to turn back and look at him. “Has to be done. Someone has to—to fiddle with stuff. Find out about it. ‘speriment! How else are we gonna learn—to find out what’s out here if we don’t s’plore and touch stuff? Jack’s always saying don’t touch stuff but that’s dumb, but don’t tell him I said that, ‘kay?”

“My lips are sealed,” Sam assured him, smothering a grin.

“Risky? Yeah, youbetcha,” Daniel tried to look deeply serious and completely failed. “Sometimes dangerous, sure, sure, absolutely. But that’s what we do. Why we’re here. Risk is our business," he strongly proclaimed, and then looked astonished at the degree of vehemence he'd managed to attain given his blitzed condition. "Someone has to take a chance sometimes," he continued. " Only way to find out… what it’s all about. What it all means. Ya know?” he finished brightly, with such purely hopeful confusion it broke her heart.

“Meaning of life stuff?” Sam smiled tremulously as she reached out to lightly ruffle her fingers through Daniel’s hair. “Love you, you know,” she told him softly.

“Pfffffft!” he grinned drunkenly, his face glowing. “Bet you say that to all the  
archleologilists – archleelogilists – ah crap – linglists.”

“Nah,” Sam shrugged. “Just the ones with goo all over them.”

“So, you’re okay then—we’re—we’re good?”

“Yeah, Daniel, we’re good. And I didn’t hear anything about alien beer and  
missing underwear.”

“Woof!” Daniel looked up at her gratefully. “That’s _really_ good!”

~~~***~~~

Sam was still smiling as she followed the corpsmen bearing Daniel’s stretcher out of the cave.

“Jaaaaaaccck,” the strapped in, strapped down, thoroughly medicated man drowsily demanded. Sam had to scramble to get out of the way of the duly summoned colonel barrelling straight to the side of the man who wasn’t going home without him.

Teal’c had gone into the cave to get the rest of the gear together as soon as the medical team had vacated it. She gladly carried Daniel’s pack while Teal’c shouldered the colonel’s. Nothing one friend wouldn’t do for another.

Sam felt extravagantly, fiercely lucky to have friends such as these three men. Especially these three men. And the one who bound the four of them together.

Sam honestly didn’t know if she accepted everything Daniel had tried to say to her in his earnest attempt to make her understand she stood absolved of all blame in his eyes. But he believed it. No one could be that stoned and not mean every word they said. However strangely it came out.

Daniel meant it. Because he did, maybe she could find a way to accept it as well.

It sure beat the hell out of the alternative.

756’s eerie semi-night had thrown a chilling blanket of unending twilight over the land as the group trudged across the flat expanse to the gate. A short distance ahead the colonel, still walking at Daniel’s side, was grinning and bantering while Daniel burbled dreamily but briefly until the drugs finally carried him away. The colonel didn’t seem to mind the man he was addressing was out of it; he kept up a steady stream of snappy patter, his relief spilling out of him in a torrent of inane chatter shot through with a lot of really bad jokes.

Really, really bad jokes.

Sam envied Daniel his oblivion. Teal’c met her eye as she turned to glance at the Jaffa walking solemnly beside her. Though he didn’t say a word she was of the distinct opinion he agreed with her.

To those who didn’t know better this was simply yet another time Daniel was being carried home instead of making it there under his own steam. No different from any of the other times the colonel had walked at his side all the way, carrying on much the same way now as before.

But she knew differently. Knew the real reason for the light in the colonel’s eyes. The source of the tenderness briefly touching them as he glanced frequently, repeatedly at the man slumbering quietly, peacefully now, while his friends took him home. She knew the truth of the love burning between them, unsuspected.

_Don’t worry Colonel, Daniel, your secret’s safe with me._

FINIS


End file.
